I'm not impressed with the 9700pro :( UPDATED!

[mcveigh]

OK I ordered one for a client.

This was my first time with this one, and I wanted to see how hot it got, so I put it in my system first
AMD 1600XP
Epox 8KHA+
antec true330 power supply (hmmmm quiet )
256MB pc2700 ram
40GB 7200RPM seagate
XP PRO w/ SP 1
I down loaded the latest drivers from ATI's website.

Old vid card geforce 2MX (orig mx)
new vid card Sapphire 9700pro retail

I tried RTCW and UT2003

IN rtcw I set everythign to their highest settings and ddn't notice much difference in things, maybe edges were a little smoother.

IN UT2003 I noticed a bigger difference especially in the sky, but over all nothing that tells me I need to go buy this card for myself.
I set the setting to there highest in that as well.

anyonel else run into the same thing?

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Did you turn on Anisotropic filtering and AA?
Did you crank up the resolution?
What kind of monitor were you playing on?

There is definitely a BIG difference between a GF2 MX and a Radeon 9700 pro

 

[CurtCold]

I think you would notice more of a difference coupled with a faster CPU from what I've read. In anAnd's article, it seems that you need at least 2Gz of processing power to exploit the potential of this Card.

Also, did you turn on AA, and Filtering? If you didnt' install right going from NVidia to ATi, you may also have some issues there, probably need some bios tweaking too to really get the card going. Did you also try higher resoloutions than you were previously running?

I haven't seen the card in action either, so I can't say. It is the best thing out on the market though.

I went from a gf2, to an 8500, and the difference was night and day at the same resoloutions, so I dunno why you can't see a difference.

 

[rbV5]

anyonel else run into the same thing?

No, not really.

 

[Adul]

your 9700 is begging to be pushed. 1600 aint going to do much.

try some FSAA and other goodies turned on. hell crank up the details beyond max for ut

 

[hdeck]

need a better comp to get its full potential

 

[Czar]

Try 4xFSAA and 16xAnostrophic and in 1280x960 and everything maxed out ingame then come back


I'm doing that in Battlefield1942 and getting around 50fps constantly, I'm happy

 

[obeseotron]

Even a fast p3 is capable of pushing far more than a gf2 mx. On an unoverclocked p4 1.8a I saw an incredible difference between a geforce 1 ddr (which is faster than a gf2 mx) and a geforce 4 ti4400 (probably not even 2/3 the speed of a 9700 pro). Maybe if you are running games in low detail, 640x480 you wouldn't see much difference. The 9700 pro is probably close to 5 times as fast across the board compared to an gf2mx, not noticing a difference is next to impossible. UT2K3 probably couldn't even maintain 30 fps with low quality settings with an mx, how could you not see a difference?

 

[xSauronx]

your eyes are broken

 

[mcveigh]

OK I have a 19in monitor I noramlly run at 1024x768/85Hz (LG studio works 995e)
I was running both games at 1280x1024.

are the Anisotropic filtering and AA setting in the games?

if so I turned up everything up all the way 32bits, high detail etc.
what else should I have tried?

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: mcveigh
OK I have a 19in monitor I noramlly run at 1024x768/85Hz (LG studio works 995e)
I was running both games at 1280x1024.

are the Anisotropic filtering and AA setting in the games?

if so I turned up everything up all the way 32bits, high detail etc.
what else should I have tried?

go to display properties/advanced/open gl set everything to max then go to display properties/advanced/d3d set everything to max

then run those games on highest details in games options

hth

mike

 

[Adul]

turn of vsync?

 

[Wuzup101]

I went from a gf2pro to an 8500 and saw a huge difference, so I would suspect you should see something huge(r)...haha. Anyway make sure to max everything, AA, etc... Put the rez up as high as you can on your monitor and enjoy. Dammit I want one of those cards now but I just got this 8500 not too long ago...oh well... new laptop will have a 9000 in it soon enough.

 

[FishTankX]

Iin the driver pannel go to advanced. You should see Direct 3D tabs and OpenGL tabs. in here you can find the anistropic and FSAA sliders. Untick 'Application preference' and slide FSAA up to 4X and anistropic as high as it will go. Then try playing again. You will notice a huge difference, after that's done.

P.S. This would kill a Ti4600 no problem. The difference with the 9700 pro is that it has the horsepower to do such crazy stuff.

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
your eyes are broken

 

[GrumpyMan]

Did you completely remove all traces of the Nvidia drivers first?

 

[element]

Hey Stevie Wonder, nice to see some famous people visiting these boards too. Enjoy your gf2mx.

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: GrumpyMan
Did you completely remove all traces of the Nvidia drivers first?

i'd uninstall all the ATI and Nvidia drivers. Then use something like RegVac or JV16, or both and then reboot. Let windows find the card and reinstall your drivers.

 

[tbates757]

I would agree that the main problem is that his cpu is the bottleneck. 1600+ usually overclocks really well (assuming you have a good stepping core and some decent RAM). In theory, since your RAM is rated for operation @ DDR333 and your motherboard runs at default DDR266 you should be able to increase your FSB to 166, making your CPU run at 1.75GHZ instead of 1.4ghz. I have the same motherboard and am running a 1600+ at 1.85ghz. Also, you might want to add 256MB more RAM.

 

[Maggotry]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Iin the driver pannel go to advanced. You should see Direct 3D tabs and OpenGL tabs. in here you can find the anistropic and FSAA sliders. Untick 'Application preference' and slide FSAA up to 4X and anistropic as high as it will go. Then try playing again. You will notice a huge difference, after that's done.

P.S. This would kill a Ti4600 no problem. The difference with the 9700 pro is that it has the horsepower to do such crazy stuff.

Just to see what would happen, I tried that with my Ti4600 / XP 2200+ system. 1600x1200x32, 4x AA, 4x AF, all details to max. Then sat back and watched the slide-show.

 

[mcveigh]

well I got the new system together.

P4 2.4B w/533 bus
256MBcrucial ram
80GB wd SE hard drive 8mb cache
9700 pro
xppro w/ sp1
845ge chipset

SO I downloaded the UT2003 demo.
I set all setting to their highest in the display settings.
then I set the game settings to their highest.

I tried 1600x1200x32 but the screen was jerky and big white squares were everywhere.
if I set it to 16bit color it ran fine or any lower resolution.

 

[FishTankX]

Well, that's what I said. It kills a Ti4600 (The AF does a Ti4600 in, really badly.) but a Radeon9700 pro can push those kind of settings at 60FPS. Which is why it's such a sought after card.

 

[FishTankX]

Mcveigh, please go to the Driver panels and enable Anistropic filtering to the max and moderate FSAA for best results with your 9700 pro. Atleast turn up Anistropic to the max. (Preferably performance since performance and quality aren't that far apart) because it makes a huge difference in image quality.

 

[PlatinumGold]

well I got the new system together.

P4 2.4B w/533 bus
256MBcrucial ram
80GB wd SE hard drive 8mb cache
9700 pro
xppro w/ sp1
845ge chipset

SO I downloaded the UT2003 demo.
I set all setting to their highest in the display settings.
then I set the game settings to their highest.

I tried 1600x1200x32 but the screen was jerky and big white squares were everywhere.
if I set it to 16bit color it ran fine or any lower resolution.

Your definitely having a drivers issue. but it also doesn't sound like you want to resolve the issue.

 

[mcveigh]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Mcveigh, please go to the Driver panels and enable Anistropic filtering to the max and moderate FSAA for best results with your 9700 pro. Atleast turn up Anistropic to the max. (Preferably performance since performance and quality aren't that far apart) because it makes a huge difference in image quality.

I did that.


PlatinumGold: what do you mean it sounds like I don't want to solve it?